The stick-man chanted: 'Thu-ree. The shooter craps out.'

The crowd stirred, the shooter backed out and turned round.

'Still keeping your luck to yourself, Keith?' And we looked each other over for the first time in ten years.

He hadn't changed much. Broad, stocky, steady, like the hand. A snub square face with a tanned and oddly coarse skin, pale blue eyes, short curly fairhak. And a cheerful, watchfulexpression of enjoying this moment and making damn sure the next one didn't creep up on him unseen.

Ned Rafter, Australian gambling man and fighter-pilot-for-hire. You find the game or the war and Ned'll find you.1 He said: 'How're you doing, matey, all right?'

'All right.' We didn't shake hands; pilots don't, much -maybe it's too serious, too final.

I didn't ask how he was doing – I didn't need to. He was wearing a pearl grey silk suit of a cut you couldn't find within a thousand miles or several hundred dollars of the Caribbean. And I didn't need to askwhat he was doing, either.

'I think we met a little earlier today,' I said. 'Next time hoot your horn before overtaking.'

He smiled slowly. 'You're getting to be a Sunday driver, Keith.' We walked round to the end of the table and he tossed a $20 bill to the croupier. 'Some chips for me mate.'

'Not me,' I said quickly. 'I came here to kick your head off; I may yet. I don't need to lose your money as well.'

'You're talking like a tourist. Nobody loses.' But he picked. up the chips for himself and dumped two little piles quickly on the betting layout of the table. The croupier twitched a small smile, so perhaps Ned had made a rather subtle bet.

I'm no gambler – not on principle, but just because I never get a kick out of taking risks. Anyway, the betting at craps is too complicated for me. The rules are simple enough: on your first throw you win with a 7 or 11, lose on a 2, 3, or 12. If you throw anything else, the rules change: you then go on throwing until you've either won by throwing the same number again, or lost by throwing a 7. No other numbers count after the first roll.

But on a casino table the layout lets you bet not just on winning or losing, but every number, different ways of making that number, and everything else except the chances of a nuclear war and your grandmother getting gallstones. All at different odds, of course.

The dice rolled. Ned lost one pile, but collected a fraction more than his losses on his second pile, so probably ithad been a rather subtle bet.

'The last I heard,' I said conversationally, 'you were out in the Congo. What happened?'

'Stuffed full of crook politics. Anyway, it was only flying T-28s and a few old B-26s. Got dull.' He settled one pile of chips on the layout.

'So why not the Far East? I hear there's quite a good war out there.'

'Yeh – I thought of it. Trouble is, the Americans are keeping it democratic. No outsiders.'

He lost the pile, immediately put another in another place.

'Did you try the other side? Maybe they're not so democratic.'

He gave me a sharp look. 'You think that's funny, matey?'

'Yes – life's one big laugh today. I don't always get bounced by a couple of jets that might be going to shoot. Sets you up wonderfully for seeing the funny side of things.'

He won on his pile; took it back, put another down. 'Ah, you've just been away from things too long, Keith.'

'I'vebeen away too long?' I banged a hand on the rim of the table and got a look from the stick-man. In a quieter voice, I said: 'If I'd turned into you this afternoon, you'd still be trying to walk home on the water. Your Number Two was on the wrong side for that passand much too close. If you'd tried more than a rate one turn you'd have had him flying up your back passage.'

He thought about it, staring at the table. 'Maybe… maybe you're right. These boys are too proud of flying close formation. I'll get 'em out of it. Only been there a month, yet.'

The dice rumbled across the table, were pushed back, rumbled again. The stick-man chanted the numbers; a shooter lost, another stepped forward. Craps is the fastest gambling game there is – apart from dozing at the controls of a fighter in enemy airspace.

Ned went on betting his small piles, winning and losing.

'So,' he said, 'how d'you like flying charter work?'

'Could be worse. There's good flying weather around here. Trouble is the airlines are getting too good. Few years and they'll be running jets down the islands.'

'Yeh.' He rubbed his chin thoughtfully. 'I suppose I thought you'd want something a bit more exciting – after fighters.'

'Try paying off a mortgage on your own plane sometime. It gets exciting enough.'

'Never owned me own plane.' The dice rolled – and suddenly Ned had won triple his normal stack of chips. He pushed them promptly across to the croupier. 'She'll do. Cash me in.'

'Quit while you're ahead,' I murmured.

He looked up. 'You did it yourself, once.'

I grinned. Several tourists looked at him sneeringly, as a man who couldn't take it – although taking it was just what he was doing.

He got back a surprisingly large stack of dollar bills. I hadn't expected him to be gambling low – he never had in the past and the silk suit suggested he didn't need to now – but that wad would still have covered two months' mortgage and running expenses on the Dove.

He riffled quickly through it, shoved it into his pocket. 'It right we can't get a drink in the casino?'

I nodded.

He shrugged disgustedly. 'Christ – what government control does. If I collapse on the way to the bar, tell mother I died trying.'

'That, suh, is an insult to both motherhoodand alcohol.'

We walked downstairs tothe outside bar by the swimming pool. I ordered two Bacardis and tonic and we fell naturally into talking of people we'd both known in Korea.

Some were dead and some were squadron leaders by now. Two of the Americans had reached lieutenant-colonel; another was in training to be shot to the moon and, it was believed in some quarters, back.

Mostly for something to say, I asked: 'What rank've you got in the República?'

'Colonel. Full colonel. Highest I've been yet, matey. In the Congo I was just a crummy little captain.'

I stared at him. 'Good God – are you running the whole Air Force?' I'd been thinking of him as leading a flight, or perhaps as chief instructor.

'Just the Vampires.'

'I'd have thought "major" was high enough for twelve fighters.'

He grinned. 'Ah, but those twelve are the whole of Fighter Command. So I'm C-in-C Fighters. I reckon I should be a general.'

I gave him a fast look. 'Don't say that too loud, Ned. In the Caribbean, everybody elsereally wants to be a general.'

His face went very still; then he nodded. 'Yeh. I keep forgetting. Trouble is, I never take much notice of rank.'

'You and all Australia.'

He grinned again. 'Yeh, it's the money that counts. What'd you say to 750 dollars a week, no tax, no living expenses?'

'I'd say pretty damn good – while it lasts. Is that what you're getting?'

'No, I'm getting more. But it's what I can get you.'

I counted it; I couldn't help counting it. Seven hundred and fifty dollars a week was $3,000 a month which was £1,000… even if I only stuck it three months, I'd have the mortgage on the Dove paid off clear and clean. If I lasted six months, I'd have an extra £3,000. That and selling the Dove would give me a pretty big down payment on a new Dove 8, or Aero Commander or…

Ned was watching me with a gentle, slightly sardonic look. The figures must have been ringing up in my eyes as in the window of a cash register. I said softly: 'Off we go, into the long green yonder…'

Tvegot the okay to take on another outside bloke – providing he knows the job. Right now I'm having to be squadron commander, gunnery officer, and chief instructor; I'm doing four or five flights a day. You'll be my second in command and take over half of it. What you say?'